Crazy Enough To Go Backpacking In May

Backpacking in the month of May was not my idea. It was my sister, Heather's idea. She convinced me that it was before blackfly and mosquito season and that on average there is nice, warm, sunny weather near the end of May. To be precise she said that we needed to go before May 19th because that is when she estimated the blackflies would emerge. I was hesitant to agree to go because I figured it would be cold at night and I also was aware that bears and their cubs are usually about at this time of year. But, in the end I agreed and the plans were made. In February Heather booked the sites and everything was set in motion. ​For the first time in his life my brother, Carsten, would be going backpacking with us. I went shopping with him before hand and got all the necessary equipment that he would need. I actually picked up some bear spray for the first time ever. I figured, why not. Better to be safe than sorry. 

So where do you go backpacking in May you might wonder? Most of the campgrounds are still closed before the May long weekend. We were headed to the Eastern Pine Trails which is located on the East side of Algonquin Park via the Sand Lake Gate. The entrance to the trail is just outside the Achray campground. Achray itself was still closed, but the hiking trails were open. This was the trail that Heather and I were supposed to hike last summer but were forced to go to Bon Echo instead due to forest fires. It wasn't forest fires we were concerned about at this time of year. Instead it was the opposite...flooding. We have had heavy rainfall this spring and many parts of the area have experienced flooding bad enough to close down sections of highway. The highways are open now, but who knows what we will find out on the trails.

My mother. my nephew Devin, and his friend Jo-Jo were also coming with us. Oh, and Devin's dog, Fable, was joining us too. We were a party of 6 (not including the dog). My mother and I hopped into Carsten's car and Heather, Devin, Jo-Jo and fable took another car. It was about a 3 hour drive to reach the park office at the sand Lake Gate.We arrived around 12:30 pm. 
We parked the cars and went in to finalize our registration and to pick up some maps. At the desk, the young man asked the usual questions such as "what is your license plate number? Phone number?", etc. As usual he asked "What colour are your tents?" So Heather starts rhyming off the colours "orange, orange, blue, green, grey....." That was when the young man interrupted and said " You are only supposed to have 3 tents per group".  We stood there looking at him for a moment before Heather stated that no where on the website does it say that and that when she phoned to reserve the sites (you can only reserve by phone for these particular sites 705-633-5572 ) that they never said a word to her about only being allowed to have 3 tents. The guy just said "sorry, I don't make the rules".  In the end, we just named off 3 colours of tents and he was content with that. However, we went in with all of our tents because all we had were very small tents and we couldn't fit multiple people and a dog in them (with the exception of Heather's tent which she was sharing with me already). We wondered if he had gotten the rules for regular camping and backcountry camping mixed up maybe, considering most parks allow up to 9 people in a group. I am sure most of those backpackers are not fitting 3 people in the tiny light weight tents required to backpack into the back country. Regardless, we were not turned away and we were allowed to head out on our trip with all the tents we had brought with us. 

From the gate to the head of the trail was still another 10 to 20 minute drive. I noticed as Carsten drove that there was still snow on the sides of the road in some areas. It was a cloudy day with a light rain, It was going to be a chilly trip, but I knew that once we started walking that we would be warm enough. 

We parked our cars in the parking lot with our permits displayed on the dashboard. Then we all geared up including wearing rain ponchos to keep us dry from the chilly rain that was still falling. 

Even Fable had to carry her own backpack. Hers was filled with her dog food and toys. 

We stopped to check the large posted map at the head of the trail before we began our hike. We had maps but they were packed away in our packs where they were safe from the rain. 

In the end, we missed our first turn right from the get-go and immediately went off course. We were supposed to go on the trail to the northern part of Berm Lake (red trail), but instead we ended up on the trail following the southern part of Berm Lake (purple trail). Weren't we off to a good start!  We didn't realize the mistake until we had gotten to our site, but it all worked out to our advantage. Turns out that the trail we took was shorter and we shaved off about a kilometer or more from our hike for the first day. We had inadvertently found a short cut. 

Mom and Carsten and I had started out ahead of the others. But after a few minutes my mom realized that she had forgotten her binoculars. I offered to run back to the car to get them for her. I passed Heather, Devin and Jo-Jo and by the time I caught back up to mom, they had already passed by and were way up ahead of us. We were OK with that though. We all had different paces that we liked to go at.

I had hoped that late spring would have brought more sunshine and flowers, but instead the landscape looked grey and bleak. The leaves were only just buds so there was not much green except for that of the pine trees. 

As we suspected, the water was pretty high. The first bridge we came to had water almost up to the top of it. The water was moving fairly quickly too. 

We had barely begun when my mom tripped over a rock and fell on the ground with her binoculars smacking into her chest between her and the ground. We could tell that it was very painful. For a few moments I thought that our trip would be ending before it even really began. But she pulled herself up, and after she took  a minute or two to catch her breath, she said that she wanted to carry on. So we continued on our way. I guess going back for those binoculars was not the best decision after all.  

As we crossed over another bridge through a little creek with old, dead grass around it I began to wonder if I would see any sort of beauty in the landscape. Perhaps we came just a bit too early in the year. I was starting to get a bit disappointed. 

So I started to look closer. And sure enough, signs of spring were emerging everywhere. I spotted a bunch of tiny white flowers with pale pink along the edges of its petals. This flower is called Creeping Mayflower (also known as Trailing Arbutus). I would never have seen these in the summer time. 

Further observation of the ground I was traveling over resulted in the discovery of some wintergreen berries. 

Although there were signs that a beaver was a round, I didn't actually see one. 

While we had been in the park office, the young man at the desk had spoken of a bad forest fire that had gone through here a number of years back. There were still signs of that fire all over the place. Some of the burnt wood had an artistic quality to them. One burnt stump I saw almost looked like it could have been made into a wooden bowl or something. 

There were even some interesting rocks. One in particular looked like there had been a streak of white stone running through some dark stone but had broken open and left the white streak exposed. It was like someone had glued a flat white stone onto another one. They looked nothing alike and it looked out of place. 

 At this time of year the pine trees looked almost like they had red berries on them, but it was just the red buds on the deciduous trees that were starting to open and become leaves.

Much of the hike on this day was along the waters edge. 

The view that began as grey and bleak became greener and more lovely to look at. The rain was mostly gone and I was now happy that I had come along on this hike.

Devin and Jo-Jo were quite a bit farther ahead of us. I could see them in the distance across the lake and we waved at each other. 

By the time we caught up to them at the campsite they had already begun to set up. We had our choice of 5 different sites and we chose the third one. There were supposed to be people on three other sites too, but we had not one else near us.

Devin and Jo-Jo each had their own orange tent, They put the two tents close to each other so that they could share a tarp over top of both.

Carsten's tent looked like some sort of space craft more than a tent. He said that when you lie down in it your face almost touches the roof. But he said it was comfortable enough.

Mom's tent is nothing more than mosquito netting with a tarp over it. This year we sewed a floor into it because last year she had an uninvited insect guest (large spider) that came in under the floor. The floor offers a little more protection from the wet ground as well. Surprisingly, she stayed pretty dry the whole trip in this set up. 

Heather and I shared a small blue tent. It was a new one and is smaller than the one we had last year. Less weight to carry and we still fit comfortably in it with our gear. 

Once the tents were set up we went to gather some wood for the fire. In the tree tops we could hear, and occasionally see, some woodpeckers. There were quite a few woodpeckers in the area. 

It took about an hour for everyone to cook and eat their supper because we each brought something different to eat. The rain had stopped and we were able to sit around and relax. 

After supper I went for a walk. I saw two birds on the lake that may have been loons (we could hear loon calls earlier) but they were a bit too far away to know for sure. When I got back we sat around the fire talking for awhile. Eventually it started raining again and so, when it was dark, we let the fire go out and we went to bed. It was nice to listen to the frogs peeping as we went to sleep. But the night was very chilly and I hoped that my sleeping bag was going to be warm enough.